Qflix: Another studio technology doomed to failure

Steve Safran January 4th, 2007

Here they go again. The Hollywood studios have agreed upon a complex digital lock standard that would “allow” us to download movies and TV shows, and burn them onto DVDs. The process, called Qflix, would add CSS (copy-locking) to DVDs burned on computers or at kiosks. Why won’t this work? Because there is no demand. And people can already share movies and burn DVDs without encryption. Any technology developed in the interest of the studios protecting their old models and not by the demand of the consumers will not work. (See DIVX rentals.) According to CNN, the DVD burner you currently have probably won’t even work with this scheme - some can be updated with software, but otherwise you’ll need to buy an external Qflix-enabled DVD burner. And if you go to a kiosk, it will take 10 - 15 minutes for it to burn the DVD. Imagine waiting for a season set while killing time at Walgreen’s. Not gonna happen.